It has been recognized that good putting is vitally important to successful golfing, and various devices have been previously proposed for use in practising putting. Examples of such known devices include U.S. Pat. No. 4,240,637 (Cross), U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,887 (DelRaso), U.S. Pat. No. 4,222,568 (Russo) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,538 (Gettelfinger). In general though these have provided only very poor or unrealistic representations of practical putting conditions and/or have been relatively complex or cumbersome in construction.